Quills (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Black Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Featurette-Marquis On The Marquee Featurette-Creating Charenton Featurette-Dressing The Part Theatrical Trailer TV Spots Audio Commentary-Doug Wright (Screenwriter) Gallery-Production Artifacts Notes-Fact And Film
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	119:01
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (51:02)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Philip Kaufman
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Geoffrey Rush Kate Winslet Joaquin Phoenix Michael Cains
Case	?
RPI	$26.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Czech Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Marquis de Sade was born in Paris on the 2nd June 1740. His life was very tumultuous, and very short-lived outside of his incarceration. He even managed to reach the rank of Colonel in the Parisian army. Shortly afterwards, his life of incarceration began. The Marquis published many sexually explicit and incendiary novels during his time of incarceration. One of his better-known, and somewhat incomplete, works was entitled 120 Days of Sodom, or The School for Libertines as it is also known. This novel attempted to outline 120 days worth of sexual acts of all types and depravity. Even the somewhat damaged mind of the Marquis ran out of ideas at 89 days. Apparently the remaining days were made up of many extracts and short stories the Marquis never managed to publish. It is also worth noting that during one period of imprisonment during the French Revolution, the Marquis witnessed approximately 1800 beheadings from his cell... That certainly would not help an already imbalanced psyche.

    Needless to say, he was not much liked by the authorities and this is where the story of Quills begins. The Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) is institutionalised at Charenton, a church-run home for the clinically insane. The Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix) is the kindly and somewhat revolutionary, for the time, director of Charenton. Unfortunately, the irrepressible Marquis continues publishing his explicit works with the help of Madeleine (Kate Winslet), a resourceful maid working at the asylum. As is only to be expected, this incurs the wrath of Napoleon who sends the prudish, and darkly menacing, Dr Royer Collard (Michael Caine) to 'oversee' the running of Charenton in an effort to silence the Marquis.

    The ensuing battle of wills begins a downward spiral for the Marquis and all the other inhabitants of Charenton. The harder they push the Marquis, the harder he strives to keep writing, no matter what the cost to himself or those around him.

    There are many other, often amusing, sub-plots woven around the main plotline that make this a truly fascinating movie. With the very good transfer that this disc has been afforded, there is nothing I can say other than Highly Recommended.

Video

    Presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this transfer matches the original theatrical aspect ratio. It is very good that we are able to view the movie as the director intended.

    I found the sharpness to be the major disappointment of this transfer. It is quite soft throughout with noticeable halos, on rare occasions, around bright objects. Having said that, I do not think this can be blamed on the transfer because I have some faint memory of the theatrical presentation also being quite soft. This could well be an artistic decision. Shadow detail is fine throughout without any noticeable problems. There is no marring of the image due to low level noise that I could see.

    Colour is quite muted throughout the movie with minimal saturation and infrequent splashes of bright colours. However, this appears to be an artistic choice. Indeed, as the movie progresses the colours become more and more muted, adding to the pervasive atmosphere as the asylum inmates spiral out of control. This proves to be a strong contrast between the bright and colourful opening scenes at the asylum.

    There were no obvious MPEG artefacts throughout the entirety of the feature. There are a few mild instance of film-to-video artefacts, namely telecine wobble, particularly noticeable around 32:00. Film artefacts are limited to a few occasional specks, but nothing of any real concern.

    There is a multitude of subtitles available on this disc. I sampled the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitling only. I found there was an unusually large amount of dialogue changed. There are many instances of a few words in a sentence being altered, often dramatically modifying the impact of the powerful language used.

    This is an RSDL disc with the layer change occurring at 51:02. It is quite well placed and only minimally disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two English audio tracks available on this disc. They are an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio Commentary. I listened to both tracks in their entirety.

    Dialogue is exceptional throughout, and there are no problems whatsoever in distinguishing speech. This is a very good thing as the movie is driven by the excellent, and often lewd, use of dialogue. There were no noticeable audio sync problems.

    The original score by Stephen Warbeck supports the movie well. It is very effective in heightening the emotional impact of the movie without drawing undue attention to itself.

    The surrounds were used sparingly overall. They were, however, used to great effect in dramatic sequences to create a palpable tension.

    The subwoofer also received minimal use throughout the feature. The noticeable exceptions to this were the small sections featuring Royer-Collard's carriage. These were used to emphatically announce the subwoofer's presence.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Audio Commentary

     This is an excellent audio commentary by the screen writer Doug Wright. It is screen specific and although there is only the one person speaking, it does not bog down. Having said that, there are numerous gaps in the commentary while the commentator allows the viewer to digest a specific scene(s). Nonetheless, this is an excellent audio commentary that is well worth the listen.

Marquis on the Marquee (7:30)

Creating Cherenton (4:27)

Dressing the Part (7:04)

Theatrical Trailer (2:23)

TV Spot (0:32)

Production Gallery

Fact & Film

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are quite good but needed something more to really round out the package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall